20.3853, FYI: Call: Book on Conversational Agents and Natural Lang Interaction

Wed Nov 11 02:49:47 UTC 2009

LINGUIST List: Vol-20-3853. Tue Nov 10 2009. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 20.3853, FYI: Call: Book on Conversational Agents and Natural Lang Interaction

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1)
Date: 09-Nov-2009
From: Diana Perez-Marin < diana.perez at urjc.es >
Subject: Call: Book on Conversational Agents and Natural Lang Interaction

-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:46:10
From: Diana Perez-Marin [diana.perez at urjc.es]
Subject: Call: Book on Conversational Agents and Natural Lang Interaction

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Call for Chapter Proposals

Proposal Submission Deadline: December 16, 2009

"Conversational Agents and Natural Language Interaction: Techniques and
Effective Practices" -
A book edited by Dr. Diana Perez-Marin, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain,
and Dr. Ismael Pascual-Nieto, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain

To be published by IGI Global: 
http://www.igi-global.com/requests/details.asp?ID=754

Introduction:
Human-Computer Interaction can be understood as two potent information
processors (a human and a computer) trying to communicate with each other
using a highly restricted interface. Natural Language (NL) Interaction,
that is, to let the users express in natural language could be the solution
to improve the communication between human and computers.

Conversational agents exploit NL technologies to engage users in text-based
information-seeking and task-oriented dialogs for a broad range of
applications such as e-commerce, help desk, web site navigation,
personalized service, and education.

The benefits of agent expressiveness have been highlighted both for verbal
expressiveness and for non-verbal expressiveness. On the other hand, there
are also studies indicating that when using conversational agents mixed
results can appear. These studies reveal the need to review the research in
a field with a promising future and a great impact in the area of
Human-Computer Interaction.

Objective of the Book:
The main objective of the book is to identify the most effective practices
when using conversational agents for different applications. Some secondary
objectives to fulfill the main goal are:
- To gather a comprehensive number of experiences in which conversational
agents have been used for different applications.
- To review the current techniques which are being used to design
conversational agents.
- To encourage authors to publish not only successful results, but also
non-successful results and a discussion of the reasons that may have caused
them.

Target Audience:
The proposed book is intended to serve as a reference guide for researchers
who want to start their research in the promising field of conversational
agents. It will not be necessary that readers have previous knowledge on
the topic.

Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Fundamental concepts
- Definition and taxonomy of conversational agents
- Motivation, benefits, and issues of their use
- Underlying psychological and social theories

2.  Design of conversational agents
- Techniques
- Frameworks
- Methods

3.  Practices
- Experiences of use of conversational agents in:
    - E-commerce
    - Help desk
    - Website navigation
    - Personalized service
    - Training or education
- Results achieved
- Discussion of the reasons of their success of failure 

4. Future trends
- Issues that should be solved in the future
- Expectations for the future

Submission Procedure:
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before December
16, 2009, a 2-3 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the mission and
concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will
be notified by January 16, 2010 about the status of their proposals and
sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters (8,000-10,000 words) are expected to
be submitted by April 16, 2010. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on
a double-blind review basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as
reviewers for this project. 

Publisher:
This book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group
Inc.), publisher of the "Information Science Reference" (formerly Idea
Group Reference), "Medical Information Science Reference," "Business
Science Reference," and "Engineering Science Reference" imprints. For
additional information regarding the publisher, please visit
www.igi-global.com. This publication is anticipated to be released in 2011.

Important Dates:
December 16, 2009: Proposal Submission Deadline
January 16, 2010: Notification of Acceptance
April 16, 2010: Full Chapter Submission
June 30, 2010: Review Results Returned
July 30, 2010: Final Chapter Submission
September 30, 2010: Final Deadline

Editorial Advisory Board Members :
Dr. Rafael Calvo, University of Sydney, Australia
Dr. Diane Inkpen, University of Ottawa, Canada
Dr. Pamela Jordan, University of Pittsburgh, U.S.A.
Dr. Ramón López Cózar, Universidad de Granada, Spain
Dr. Max Louwerse, University of Memphis, U.S.A.
Dr. José Antonio Macías, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
Dr. Mick O'Donnell, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
Dr. George Veletsianos, University of Manchester, U.K.
Incomplete list, full list to be announced on November, 16

Inquiries and submissions:
Please send all inquiries and submissions (preferably through e-mail) to:

- Dr. Diana Perez-Marin, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain
Email: diana.perez at urjc.es

and

- Dr. Ismael Pascual Nieto, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain
Email: ismael.pascual at uam.es 

Linguistic Field(s): Computational Linguistics
                     Discourse Analysis

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